


Psychobabble Bullshit Concerning the 3 Most Popular HS mute!fics

by whittler_of_words



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Character Analysis, Mute - Freeform, Mute!John, Psychobabble Bullshit, but i swear this is really interesting, idk i think it's pretty swell, if you're into "rose things", mute!Karkat, mute!dave, sleep deprived ranting, this isn't actually a fic just so you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A character analysis on mute!john, dave, and karkat, and how i feel that mute!john has a different feel than the other two most popular mute!headcanons/fics. Read with caution.</p><p>First chapter is just the psychoanalyzing. second has both sleep-deprived ranting + psychoanalyzing together. wow 3 a.m. me was hilarious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, so first off, this isn't a fic. just want to let you know.
> 
> second, i wrote this extremely sleep deprived, so anything that doesn't make sense, just roll with it. it's actually part of a larger rant that i wrote so sorry that it kinda springs from nowhere.
> 
> third, please take note that this /mostly/ involves some of my headcanons regarding these three characters, and that I don't mean this as a THIS IS HOW IT IS type of thing. If you don't agree with it, coolio. yay you for having thoughts diverging from the hive mind. 
> 
> 3 a.m. me just thinks like rose, i guess. HS is just filled with characters ripe for the picking when it comes to psycoanalyzing or however you spell that.
> 
> *Edit* now with the whole sleep-deprived rant also included!

It's pretty interesting when a character's most defining aspect, (in this case, dave and karkat's words) and take it away from them, or don't even give it to them at all. Mute!John is a bit strange in this sense, because while his defining character isn't his speech, or at least not the primary one, disrupting his ability to talk still leaves a larger feeling of broken-ness than it does in a character like dave and karkat, although where that feeling stems from probably has much to do with the fact that emotion, such as happiness (which I would say is John's defining aspect) is usually conveyed mostly through speech. Without a tone and a voice, such revealing of his nature is left through body movement. A moment of reflection to elaborate further on why this is different with john than it is with dave and karkat. 

Dave in canon and in every fic i've read thus so far is very stoic in his expression. His glasses hide the [insert word I can't _**FUCKING REMEMBER**_ here] (majority is the word I was looking for) majority of his face, leaving only his lips and his eyebrows to convey any emotion, which dave has spent most of his life learning to control, and usually opting to keep a straight poker face to hide behind in any situation, leaning heavily on his cool-kid persona as a way to sort internally through any emotional confusion or debate. Also in canon, dave has shown a tendency for letting his words take on a more rhythmic pace, falling back on rapping and rambling to (in theory) push through what would otherwise be an awkward or silent conversation. When dave is made mute, while not being inhibited online, he is no longer able to fall back on such a defensive tactic. However, any discomfort is not readily shown due to his previously mentioned facial composure and the persona he's outwardly set for himself. As such, there isn't as stark a difference between dave and mute!dave in essence.

Taking a look at Karkat, it's obvious how his being mute would hold a different meaning than dave. Karkat, both in chat and in person, is extremely vocal, even more so than dave is. What's more important, however, is that he doesn't hold such a tendency to hide every single expression behind a dead-pan mask as dave does. While there's a big gap between a loud, shouty, angry karkat and a silently-but-just-as-much fuming mute karkat, the inflections aren't as severe due to his relatively expressive face and nature (although, again, relatively).

Now to John. Canon!John is, in essence, a bright, talkitive, and over all chipper character. He's openly cheery and, when taking a closer look at his personality, uses his words to connect to those around him, be it online or in person. Taking this into account, a mute john is one who will have a harder time connecting to others, which is important to him for any number of reasons that the reader may take the time themselves to divulge. John, like karkat, does not put restrictions on his expressions as dave does, which should make one believe that, like karkat, the differences aren't as pronounced and therefore doesn't seem to hold much prominence. However, as I briefly mentioned before, when a character's defining aspect is changed or taken away, said character's dynamics can change completely. Also previously mentioned, I believe John's defining aspect not to be his speech, but his happiness. If we take the two previous character's patterns into play, where dave's crutch is his 'indifference', and karkat's his 'anger', john's would have to be his ever-cheerfullness. He uses his 'carefree attitude' to bring normalcy to what may be to him an otherwise negative situation. A big part of displaying happiness, however, is the voice, especially when the happiness is faked, which can be seen through a change in facial expression or, in mute!John's case, a change in the speed of signing. This display is also a chance for john to regain a sense of control and composure. When John is unable to do this because of his lack in an ability to speak, he's forced to internalize his thoughts and effectively stew, which may lead to a drastic negative change in behavior, causing the biggest difference between canon and mute in all three characters.


	2. Chapter 2

Since i'm p bored of writing except not because i'm actually just tired for some reason even though I slept until 4 and I just keep trailing off and forgetting what tangent i'm on like im doing right fucking now, I figured id just type my thoughts until I could get my shit together enough to continue writing fluff about damaged bbs. If I were dave right now (which I am unfortunately not) I would probably be rambling about how its a totally ironically cool thing to do, and it is in fact so ironic that it does a double reach-around back into uncool territory only to poke its head very firmly into the ironically cool regions once again. But again im not so I won't, which is in itself ironic because I totally just did. Really. It's right fucking there pretty much two lines up you just have to look up and its there. God where am I going with this.

Wow look at that I made a new paragraph. Go, past me, you did such a good job at pushing the enter button twice. Wait, you didn't push the tab button? God damn it you lazy piece of shit, get off of your ass and move your finger just enough to be a productive member of society.

Ok, there, fine, you happy not-so-but-still past me? God, now I know what karkat was going on about. Except i'm pretty sure it was a fanfic but I hold it in high regard that it's actually canon but huss was feeling fickle and whispered his musings to a writer while they slept peacefully, blissfully unaware that their thoughts on the matter were not, in fact, theirs. Wow I really wish I had s'more good fics to read like god damn is that such a big think to ask, I just want some good fics where the characters behave /mostly/ canon and there's fluff and maybe drama and definitely a lot of healing from past hurts involved. 

Like seriously why am I so fucking sadistic with my characters its not even funny any more its really starting to be a metaphorical problem here. I wish pesterchum is a thing. Right now. I wish that it's a thing and I have friends that I talk to on a daily basis on there in a very much hs way. I wish I could play sburb with my friends. It would be a mother fuckin miracle and shit. Yeeeeeeeeah........

…

…....

…...,.,.,.,.

ok I seriously dont know what else to write. Future me will probably click on this sometime in the future (duh) and look back on this with a pitying look in her eyes. She will feel a sadness welling up within her at current me's foolishness in believing that this will have helped her write AT ALL. If anything this will disrupt the delicate character immersion and i'll have to backspace all of karkat's ooc moments, even though im still not entirely sure what ooc even means. Gotta google that shit.

Im actually kinda acting a bit like dave rn I think. Maybe it has to do with all the johndave ive been reading today. Shrug, its not my fault if most of the mute fics are mute!dave. I think that all in all its actually a pretty good head-canon, even if I have no idea where in hell it crawledd up from and who thought of it first. It reminds me a lot of mute!karkat.

It's pretty interesting when a character's most defining aspect, (in this case, dave and karkat's words) and take it away from them, or don't even give it to them at all. Mute!John is a bit strange in this sense, because while his defining character isn't his speech, or at least not the primary one, disrupting his ability to talk still leaves a larger feeling of broken-ness than it does in a character like dave and karkat, although where that feeling stems from probably has much to do with the fact that emotion, such as happiness (which I would say is John's defining aspect) is usually conveyed mostly through speech. Without a tone and a voice, such revealing of his nature is left through body movement. A moment of reflection to elaborate further on why this is different with john than it is with dave and karkat. 

Dave in canon and in every fic i've read thus so far is very stoic in his expression. His glasses hide the [insert word I can't _**FUCKING REMEMBER**_ here] (majority is the word I was looking for) majority of his face, leaving only his lips and his eyebrows to convey any emotion, which dave has spent most of his life learning to control, and usually opting to keep a straight poker face to hide behind in any situation, leaning heavily on his cool-kid persona as a way to sort internally through any emotional confusion or debate. Also in canon, dave has shown a tendency for letting his words take on a more rhythmic pace, falling back on rapping and rambling to (in theory) push through what would otherwise be an awkward or silent conversation. When dave is made mute, while not being inhibited online, he is no longer able to fall back on such a defensive tactic. However, any discomfort is not readily shown due to his previously mentioned facial composure and the persona he's outwardly set for himself. As such, there isn't as stark a difference between dave and mute!dave in essence.

Taking a look at Karkat, it's obvious how his being mute would hold a different meaning than dave. Karkat, both in chat and in person, is extremely vocal, even more so than dave is. What's more important, however, is that he doesn't hold such a tendency to hide every single expression behind a dead-pan mask as dave does. While there's a big gap between a loud, shouty, angry karkat and a silently-but-just-as-much fuming mute karkat, the inflections aren't as severe due to his relatively expressive face and nature (although, again, relatively).

Now to John. Canon!John is, in essence, a bright, talkitive, and over all chipper character. He's openly cheery and, when taking a closer look at his personality, uses his words to connect to those around him, be it online or in person. Taking this into account, a mute john is one who will have a harder time connecting to others, which is important to him for any number of reasons that the reader may take the time themselves to divulge. John, like karkat, does not put restrictions on his expressions as dave does, which should make one believe that, like karkat, the differences aren't as pronounced and therefore doesn't seem to hold much prominence. However, as I briefly mentioned before, when a character's defining aspect is changed or taken away, said character's dynamics can change completely. Also previously mentioned, I believe John's defining aspect not to be his speech, but his happiness. If we take the two previous character's patterns into play, where dave's crutch is his 'indifference', and karkat's his 'anger', john's would have to be his ever-cheerfullness. He uses his 'carefree attitude' to bring normalcy to what may be to him an otherwise negative situation. A big part of displaying happiness, however, is the voice, especially when the happiness is faked, which can be seen through a change in facial expression or, in mute!John's case, a change in the speed of signing. This display is also a chance for john to regain a sense of control and composure. When John is unable to do this because of his lack in an ability to speak, he's forced to internalize his thoughts and effectively stew, which may lead to a drastic negative change in behavior, causing the biggest difference between canon and mute in all three characters.

**Author's Note:**

> wooh, thanks for reading! anything to add, feel free, this is really just for fun and i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as [i'm sure] i enjoyed writing it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Regarding Mute!Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2111928) by [celestial_halls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestial_halls/pseuds/celestial_halls)




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